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Israeli Planes Attack Gaza Targets

The family of Bahjat al-Zalan, who was killed with his 12-year-old son in the Israeli attack, at a funeral on Friday in Gaza City.Credit
Mohammed Abed/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images

GAZA — Israel carried out more airstrikes in Gaza early Friday, accidentally killing a Palestinian man and his 12-year-old son as militants continued to fire rockets into southern Israel.

Tensions flared after an Israeli airstrike in Gaza City on Thursday killed two Palestinians whom the military described as terrorists involved in a plot to attack Israelis. Palestinians retaliated by firing rockets from Gaza into southern Israel.

The Palestinian man who was killed on Friday died instantly when Israeli fighter jets attacked at least two targets that were described as training sites for the armed wing of Hamas, the Islamic militant group that controls Gaza. The boy died later of his wounds, and seven family members, including two women and several other children, were injured. The man was identified by Agence France-Presse as Bahjat al-Zalan. One of the strikes, on a site in northern Gaza, badly damaged a house, causing the casualties, said Adham Abu Selmia, a spokesman for the Gaza medical services.

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The Israeli military said it was aiming for training sites of the armed wing of Hamas when this family home was destroyed.Credit
Mohammed Abed/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images

The Israeli military said in a statement that it regretted the civilians’ deaths, and that its airstrike was accurate but that it had caused secondary explosions of stored weapons. The military said that the responsibility for the deaths lay with Hamas because it operates in the heart of populated areas.

On Thursday, a missile struck a car in which the two men were traveling along a busy street during the afternoon rush hour, near a public park and several banks. Six bystanders were reported wounded.

The rockets fired into Israel on Thursday and Friday landed in open areas and caused no casualties, the Israeli police said. A longer-range rocket that was fired toward the city of Ashdod on Friday evening was intercepted by Israel’s Iron Dome antimissile system.

The Israeli military said in a statement that the main target of the strike on Thursday was Essam al-Batsh, 43, a senior operative of Al Aksa Martyrs Brigades, a group in Gaza that is nominally associated with Fatah, the party led by the Palestinian Authority’s president, Mahmoud Abbas. The military said that Mr. Batsh had been involved in numerous attacks on Israel from across the border with Egypt, including a suicide bombing in the Israeli resort of Eilat in 2007 in which three Israelis were killed.

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A Palestinian woman mourns next to the body of Bahjat Al-Zalan, who was killed in a blast from an Israeli air strike on a nearby Hamas training camp in Gaza City on Friday.Credit
Ibraheem Abu Mustafa/Reuters

Israeli security forces have been on high alert in recent days in the area along the Egyptian border because of intelligence warnings of an imminent attack. In August, gunmen who crossed into Israel from the Sinai killed eight Israelis and wounded more than 30 in multiple attacks north of Eilat, the most serious assault on Israel from Egyptian territory in decades. Five Egyptian security personnel were subsequently killed by Israeli forces as they pursued the attackers, severely straining Israeli-Egyptian relations.

The second Palestinian killed in Gaza on Thursday was a relative of Mr. Batsh’s and a member of Hamas. On Wednesday, an Islamic Jihad militant was killed in an Israeli bombing to the east of Gaza City.

In another development, Hamas officials in Gaza denied reports this week that most Hamas personnel had left Damascus, Syria, where the group has its headquarters, under pressure from moderate Arab states like Egypt, Qatar and Jordan to increase the isolation of the Syrian president, Bashar al-Assad.

A Hamas official in Gaza said that the leadership was remaining in Syria, but that some of the organization’s members may have left out of fear for their safety because of the unrest there. The official spoke on the condition of anonymity because of the delicacy of relations with Syria and other Arab governments.

Fares Akram reported from Gaza, and Isabel Kershner from Jerusalem.

A version of this article appears in print on December 10, 2011, on page A13 of the New York edition with the headline: Two Killed in Israeli Attacks as Palestinians Continue Rocket Strikes. Order Reprints|Today's Paper|Subscribe